Alright, if you have your Bibles, turn to Mark chapter 12, and we're going to open with this passage together, and I want us to read it together. This is Mark chapter 12, verses 28 through 34. Mark chapter 12, verses 28 through 34. Listen very carefully, because these are the most important words that you will hear in the next hour. These are the words of the living God. Let's read them. Mark chapter 12, verse 28, through verse 24 says this, And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another. And seeing that he answered well, asked him, Which commandment is the most important of all? And Jesus answered, The most important is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said to him, you are right, teacher. You have truly said that he is one and that there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, you are not far from the kingdom of God. And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions. I want to just start by asking you to think about something. You think about human nature and things that we can observe all across the globe, all peoples. And there's something about human nature that we like to ask the ultimate questions. And this is in a secular sense and in the more serious sense. In a secular sense, you find people sitting around asking questions like, who's the greatest quarterback that's ever played the game? Nobody asks questions like, who's that quarterback that lost the Super Bowl in 1995? We ask the ultimate questions. Who's the greatest U.S. President? Who's the greatest world ruler? And then spin that into the most important things in the universe. And we're consumed with this idea as human beings. We're consumed innately in our nature. We ask the mega questions. That's one way to think about them. The questions above all questions. Like, why are we here? Like on the planet, why are we here? What is life? What is the purpose of life? What's it all about? There's something about human nature that we long for answers to the deepest questions in the universe. Well today, we are about to see a mega question asked to Jesus, and Jesus is going to turn around and give us the answer to a mega question in our passage today. So we're going to jump right in into verse 28, and we're going to set the framework of this. We're about to get a massive answer from Jesus. Verse 28 says, One of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, Which commandment is the most important of all? So this particular day, this is the same day that we've been in since Mark chapter 11, a scribe walks up to Jesus in the temple. Matthew tells us that not only was he a scribe, he was also a Pharisee and a lawyer. Now that's a pretty impressive resume, okay, that this guy's a scribe, a Pharisee, and a lawyer. And the point there is this man is very capable with this book, very capable and learned in the Scriptures. He's an expert in Bible interpretation. And this guy comes up to Jesus in the temple, and he opens his mouth, and this Bible scholar asks Jesus a question about the Bible, regarding specifically the Torah. What is the greatest commandment in the law, the greatest commandment of the Torah, the law of Moses? This is what was asked. This is the mega question out of all written scripture, what's the highest? What sits at the very top? And this was not as easy as it would sound because at this time, it's widely known at this time that the Pharisees, they had went and numbered off 613 commandments in the Torah. They had numbered them. That's a lot of commandments. There are 365 positive commandments, one for each day of the year. You shall do this. And 248 negative commandments, totals up to 613. Don't do this. So there's a lot of commandments. And so this is not a question that's as easy as you might think. Which one of the 613 is the mega one, sits at the very top? And so this guy slips into this conversation. He sees Jesus answering his enemies wisely, and so he says, I want Jesus' interpretation of this. Which one does Jesus say sits at the very top? Of all the 613, what is the most important command that God has given human beings? What is the most important command that God has given human beings? Now, on this particular day, this particular scribe asked this mega question to the perfect person. To the perfect person. And I want you to think about this. The stages are set at this moment. What's about to happen in the next verses is that the greatest person that has ever existed, Jesus Christ, is about to survey and summarize the greatest book, that's the Word of God, the Scriptures. And He is going to clarify for us the greatest commandment in all the Word of God. This is what's at stake. Now this Word is about to come to us with the greatest authority that it could possibly hit us. This is the mega command. The author of the Bible is about to give us the inspired commentary on the Scriptures. On the book that he wrote. So what's about to come out of his mouth is unthinkably true and unthinkably authoritative. This is the authoritative commentary on the entire Bible. This is why each of you have breath in your lungs and a heartbeat even in this moment. This is why you have that. This is why you're alive on the planet. This is why 7 billion people on planet Earth have breath in their lungs and life in their body to do this. This is the mega command. And Jesus is about to give us the essence of human life boiled down into a really simple statement. And I love that. There is something about that that I love that. I love that He just takes it all and He boils it down to such clarity and such simplicity that we can understand it. This is grace and mercy from Jesus that He would do this. That we have all this these layers of commandments and this massive thing, and He just gives us a chunk of an inspired commentary, an inspired interpretation. And I love that, because there is something in me, and you might be like me on this. There's very few things that irk me more than religious leaders. giving these big, huge, grandiose, wordy, foggy, unclear answers to the most important things in the universe. It drives me almost insane. And Jesus is not like that. You ask Jesus the most important question, and He answers in such clarity that children can understand this. Children can understand this. This is the Savior. This is what He's about to teach us in verse 29 and 30. Jesus teaches us the greatest commandment in the Bible. And that's point number one on your outline. We're going to read it together. Jesus answered, The most important is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. There it is. The most important obligation laid upon humanity is to love God. That's it. That is numero uno. At the very top, we must love God. We're on the planet to love God. This is why you have a heart beat right now. You are created to love God. Now, this is not a new teaching. This is not something that came out of nowhere. And the reason we know that is because Jesus anchors this teaching in the Old Testament. He quotes a verse from Deuteronomy, specifically Deuteronomy 6. verses 4 and 5. Do you see the simplicity of that? Seven-year-old children that are listening to me right now can understand what Jesus just said. The greatest command laid upon every human being is you must love God. I love that. We can remember that. We can deal with those thoughts. We can understand it. We can understand this. This is the Shema. Deuteronomy 6, 4, and 5 is known as the Shema. And this was actually repeated by many Jews twice a day that they would say this prayer. They incorporated it, quoting it into their morning and evening prayers to God. And it's called the Shema because the first word in the verse is here in English, but it's Shema in Hebrew. And so the first thing that these Jews would do, And they wake up in the morning, they go to bed at night, and they would command themselves. This is like you talking to yourself. Hear! You hear, soul! Hear all Israel! Hear! They would command themselves that the words that follow, they were to hear this with the strictest attention. They were to listen with everything that they were to the words that would follow after this commandment. This is Shema, a very popular passage in Israel, and Jesus gives it the highest place in all the Word of God. So they were to hear these words, the Lord is our God and the Lord is one. They would remind themselves of this all the time, twice a day some of them even. The Lord is our God and the Lord is one. He's Yahweh, He's our covenant God. We are in covenant with this God and there's one God. He's the one true God. Now that is an exclusive language here. It tells us that this God that we are to love, the God that every human being is to love, He's one. He's absolutely unique. There is none like Him. There is none besides Him. So this command to love this God flows out of His uniqueness. You don't love just any God. You love the Lord our God, the one God that created all things, that rules over all that He has made, the Holy One. None like Him, none beside Him, shares His glory with no one. That is the one that every human being is created to love. And this is the highest commandment in all the Bible. We are to love this God exclusively. None besides Him. He's one. There's not five million gods. There's not even five gods. There's one God. That makes all other supposed gods false gods. He is one and there is none like Him. I want to spend some time on this word because the commandment is love. That's who that God is, but the commandment is we must love that God, that one and only God, our God. So I want to spend some time unpacking this word, love. Because we live in the days we live in, and it is very popular. I've heard this many times in just ten years of being a Christian. to compare biblical love with our modern version of love, such as romance or sentimentality. I have heard many Bible teachers, several times over, say things, they're trying to draw the comparison there, the contrast, and they say things like, love is an action. Love is not a noun. Love is a verb. It's something that you do. It's mainly action. And I just want to come against this hard. Hard. With the Word of God. And I understand what they're doing. And I agree that biblical love is night and day difference between sentimentality and romance. But that is a hard sell with the Scriptures. The emphasis of love in the Bible is not on your actions, it's on your affections. It's not on the deeds you do for God, it's your delight in God. And we're going to be very careful in defining this, because this is numero uno. This is what's supposed to be going on in your life at the very top. So biblically, love to God is mainly affections, not actions, and it's mainly delight. and not duty. Let's look at a few verses on this. Love is more than words. It's not mainly the things you say to God or about God. Even when you walk into your room, and you begin to talk to this God, and you begin to say things to this God. Maybe you say something like Psalm 73 25, Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside you. Let's say you say that. Those are good and right words to say, and it sounds like love for God, but Jesus teaches us in Mark 7 verse 6, listen to this verse. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Jesus just taught us something in that verse. If there's words in the mouth, but no love in the heart. The Bible has a word for that. It's called hypocrisy. Jesus teaches us that that's hypocrisy. Love for God is more than words. It's more of you saying the right things to God. It's more than that. There must be heat in the heart for God, not just hot air in your mouth. There's got to be heat in the soul, passion for God, or it's hypocrisy. Love is also more than external obedience. This might be a surprise to some. It's more than external obedience. You ask some people what love for God is and they say commandment keeping. We got to get up under that because what does this mean if that's true? John 14, 15 would make no sense. It says this, If you love me, Jesus, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. John 14, 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Now that verse gives us something very helpful. It tells us that commandment keeping will always follow true love for God. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. We good there? But it also tells us something else. Because it tells us they're not equal to each other. If they were equal to each other, if loving God meant keeping the commandments of God, then that verse would say, if you love me, you will love me. You see that? You see how silly that is? And that verse is a perfect explanation for this, that there is something up under commandment keeping that's called love for God. It's more than external obedience to commands. There must be heat in the heart for God, not just doing things for God. You've got to have passion in your heart for God if you want to keep the greatest commandment. This is numero uno, that God lays on all humanity. You must feel the right things for God. You must have the right affections for God. You must delight in this God above all things. 1 Peter 1.8 is a good description of some of the affections that are supposed to be happening in every human being. 1 Peter 1.8 says this, Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. What does it mean to love God? Listen to the rest of the verse. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. Y'all see how much affection and passion is there? That's what it means to love God, that you have so much joy in this God, it's impossible to even express it fully. That's what it means to love God. There's passion in the heart. It's not mainly the things you do for God, it's the things you feel for this God. This is the great commandment. And this commandment is to love God. And Jesus tells us that this love is to be comprehensive, even all-consuming in your life. You say, what do you mean by that? We have a word that's repeated four times in the Shema. It's the word all. You see that? All your heart. All your soul. All your mind. All your strength. Now, that means everything, that pretty much just covered every corner of your life, that this love that you're commanded to have for this God is to be pervasive. It's to be absolutely pervasive. It's a call for total, complete, wholehearted love and passion for God. With your entire being. With your entire being, heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then we are to love this God exclusively. No one or anything else is to be valued besides this God in our lives. Listen to Matthew. This is chapter 10, verse 37. Jesus says this. He says, whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. So we find out some interesting things about this greatest command to love God. Jesus just taught us that to love anything beside this God, right up next to this God. It's got a name in the Scriptures. It's called idolatry. That's the name for that. That if we love anything besides this God, value anything in life more than this God, we are wicked idolaters and we've broken the greatest commandment in Scripture. You see that? Even if it's just this, even if it's just you love your kid more than you love God. If you have more passion in your soul for your children than you do the one true and living God, that verse teaches that you are an idolater. You have failed to keep the greatest commandment laid upon humanity. There are to be no rivals in your life. And if it can't even be your children, how much less can it be sports or some silly hobby or your job? Nothing besides this God. He is to be the supreme treasure and the delight of your soul. The supreme treasure of your soul. You must delight in Him completely. completely, with all that you are. You must be enthralled with God. You like to use language like that? You must be enthralled with God. Absolutely captivated by God. Infatuated with His God. That you love to speak with Him. You love to think about Him. You love to talk to Him. You love to talk about Him. You love hearing people preach His Word. You love to be around His people. You're infatuated with this God. That is the greatest commandment. in all the Bible. It's not mainly doing things for God. You have to feel passion in your soul. This is the greatest command in all the Scriptures. We're to love God with all our hearts, all our souls, all our mind, and all our strength. And I don't want you to get bogged down in these categories. There's some overlap here. It's more important that you grab a hold of the word all than it is that you understand how these things connect to each other. All. That's the point. Loving with everything. This love issues from the heart. All your heart. This is the deepest part of who you are. The deepest part of you. Listen to Proverbs 4.23. It says, Keep your heart with all diligence, for from it flows the springs of life. You have a portion in your being that's like a spring that everything else flows from. That's called your heart. And you're supposed to love God from the deepest part of who you are, from the center of your being. It's supposed to be fully set on this God. You're supposed to love Him with all your heart. And this love for God takes place in these spheres. It takes place in the soul, in the mind, in the strength. And the soul is the seed of the emotions. It describes your emotional life. You are a created being, like it or not, that you have emotions. Even Jesus did. Listen to Jesus talk about the soul. In Matthew 26, verse 38, Jesus said this, My soul is exceedingly sorrowful. It's the seat of the emotions. So this love for God is supposed to explode with discernible emotions in your life. You're supposed to love this God. Your emotions are supposed to be unmixed. Unsurpassed. The most excited you get as a human being should be towards this God. The most sad you should ever be as a human being is when you fail to meet the expectations of this God. He gets your supreme emotions. Unsurpassed. And we are commanded to burn with a white hot passion for this God. Not a coldness, but a loving with all our emotions. You are to love this God with all your mind. And that's simple enough. This is the seed of your intellect and your thought life. And what this means is that you are commanded to think beautiful, glorious thoughts of God all the time. That your mind is to be filled with the God of the Bible. That you are to be saturated with the knowledge of this God from the Scriptures. This is Psalm 111 verse 2. It says, Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. What'll happen if you delight in this God? You'll study this God. What'll happen if you're enthralled with this God? You'll think glorious, exalted thoughts about this God. You are to love God with all your strength. And this is the seed of your will, and it describes your effort as a person. It can be used to describe physical energy or your mental energy. This is like the oomph that you have, whether it's to think or whether it's to will and to do. And you are to love God with this. Every ounce of energy, not in weakness, but fervency. There needs to be passion. There needs to be something that rises up in you that you command yourself, worship this God, love this God, delight in this God. There's fervency there. All your strength. Every ounce that you can muster. to think glorious thoughts of this God, to delight in this God. Every ounce of your strength. So I want you to see how comprehensive this is. This is holistic. This is the greatest commandment and it is glorious. It is glorious. If this is kept, God is greatly glorified in your life. He is the supreme treasure. Every single moment, every ounce of your being is to supremely delight in this God. This is the command. So at this point, I'll just remind you of this. It is not enough. It is not enough for you to know right things about God. It is not enough for you to do a few things for this God. You must love this God. You must love Him with everything that you have. And this is the numero uno demand on all of humanity. This is the greatest commandment. God must be our greatest passion. He must be our greatest desire. And He must be our greatest pursuit in life. And if He's not, then we break the greatest commandment in the Scriptures. This is the great command. I hope you feel the weight of that. This is a glorious thing. We need to feel the weight of supremacy of this. Every corner of your life, every ounce of your being. This is the most important thing to drive down in the human soul. Soul, I must love God. This is it. But Jesus doesn't stop here. The scribe asked Him for the most important command, and Jesus gives him two answers. He didn't ask for two. He asked for one, but Jesus gives him two. So in verse 31, Jesus goes straight into teaching us the second greatest command in the Bible. This is point number two on your outline. Verse 31, Jesus says, the second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Matthew's version of this commandment tells us that the second is like the first. The second is like it. So it tells us that these are connected. The second is like the first. They're connected. And the first commandment needs to stay at the top. And the second commandment is like it, but it must follow it. And what this means for us is that we'll only love other people rightly, like we're commanded here, if we love God supremely. It has to happen like that. It's very popular in the last hundred years. It's called the social gospel, our liberalism. People all over the world love this commandment of Jesus. Love your neighbor as yourself. You've got Hindus walking around quoting this commandment of Jesus. They love to talk about this. But this is the second command. The first one is to love the one true and only God with everything that you have. And it has to stay like that. They're connected. Keep them in the right order. Again, Jesus quotes another verse from the Old Testament. This time it's Leviticus 19.18. This is not a new teaching. He roots all of this back in the Old Testament revelation of God. This is what it's always been. Leviticus 19.18. Love your neighbor as yourself. Now I want you to think about that with me for a minute. That tells us, just on the surface, that tells us there's a natural healthy self-love. There just is. He says, as yourself, there's something going on there. And this ought to be real easy for you to understand, because you woke up this morning, and you clothed yourself, and you ate, and you probably took a shower, and you took care of yourself in a lot of different ways this past week. You took care of yourself. That's natural self-love. Listen to Ephesians 5, verse 29. It says, No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes it. and cherishes it. So by nature, we love ourselves. We take care of our needs. We value ourselves enough to put food in our stomach, to drink some water every once in a while, and to put some clothes on. You understand that? That's natural self-love. And what Jesus is commanding here in the second commandment, the second greatest one, is that we are to take that natural love and we are to bend it outward toward other people. Love your neighbor as yourself. In the same way that you love yourself, in the same way that you value yourself and take care of yourself, you're to do that same thing toward your neighbor. This is Philippians, it's helpful here, Philippians chapter 2 verse 3. It says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourself. In humility, count others more significant than yourself. So we're easing in to some weighty, weighty things in the Word of God. Here's what I mean by that. It is perfectly natural for you to love yourself, but it is supernatural for you to value another human being more than you value yourself. We have hit the supernatural commandments of God. The natural love that you have for yourself is to be bent out toward other people. This is a heavy command. You think about how many times you've broken this command this week. This is a heavy command. Matthew 7 verse 12, Jesus gives us a commentary on the second greatest commandment. Now we call that the golden rule. Here's what it says. So whatever you wish that others would do to you, Do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets. So, I want you to give you a visual here. John Piper gave me this and I think it's very helpful. A visual to understand this commandment. This is basically literally teaching this. That you rip the skin off your body. And how you look. And you look in the mirror and you take care of yourself and you feed yourself. You rip the skin off your body. And you wrap it around another human being. And you look at them, but you see yourself. Because they're covered in your skin. And you're standing there and you're looking at them, and you're looking at them as though you were looking at your own self. And then all these desires that you have for yourself, for your safety, for your happiness, for your joy, for your walk with God, for your health, all these desires that you have for yourself, if you were to look at another person and you had those exact same desires toward them, just like you do to yourself, this is a staggering command. Cuts to the root of every one of our interactions with other people. This is a staggering command. This is absolutely supernatural. You must love and value others just as you love and value yourself, or you break the second greatest commandment in the entire universe. This is it. The second is like it. It's connected to the first. This commandment is so important. The only thing more important than you loving other people as yourself is that you love God with everything that you have. That's the only thing above this. The second greatest commandment. Verse 31 shows us that these two commands, they sum up all the other commands. You see that in verse 31. This is point number 3 on your outline. He says this. He finishes his phrase. He says, No other commandment greater than these. None. All those 630, none of them touch these. None are greater than these. So He's giving you the essence. He's boiling down the entire law of God and all His demands to humanity, and He's saying, this is it. None's greater than this. Matthew tells us that all the Law and the Prophets, they depend on this. That's Matthew 22, 40. Some of your versions might say they hang on this. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two. And the point there is these are like a foundation. You ever seen a real tall building? Forty, fifty stories? Some hospital or something? My point is, is that all that structure above sits on that foundation below. And this is what Jesus is teaching. That these are like the foundation on which everything else is built. These two commandments. Jesus boils down the law to basically one thing expressed in two ways, love. This is what God is really after in your life. Love. Love to God supremely. Love to neighbor as yourself. This is His summary of the entire law. And this takes us to what really matters in our lives. What really matters in life? What are you here for? To love God supremely and to love your neighbor as yourself. This is the demand. This is what He's after with all of His commandments to you. This is what He's after. What this means, this is a beautiful picture of our God. Before Genesis 1, God had a plan and a design, and we know that. And what we see from this is before even the beginning, that God, when He willed His universe into existence, what He intended, His design, was that He desired to create a universe where He was loved by His image bearers with everything they possibly had. He wanted to create a world like that. He wanted them to spread all over the earth. That they would desire Him supremely. And this is what God's world was meant to be like. And He wanted those image bearers to love one another, even like they would love themselves. This is the original design of God. This is the kind of world that God intended. This is what He's after from humanity. So these two commands provide the foundation for human existence. Everything connects here. These commandments are to be obeyed every moment of every day in every nation on earth. Both of them. This is God's design. And the rejection of His design is called sin. And this is humanity's biggest problem, that we do not keep these commandments. We have rejected the design of God. We have sinned against this God. We have broken the two greatest commandments. Our problem, the root of all of our problems, is that we desire in life to be happy outside of God. Y'all know that, right? Y'all done that? What I mean is the greatest commandment is to be infatuated with this God, but we go after some other lesser joy, and we forget about this God. That's your main problem in life. And the second problem that you have that's like it, is that you try to be happy in life, but you ignore the good of other people. This is the root of all of our sin. It's the foundation of human existence. This leads us to point number four on your outline. Disobeying the two greatest commands drives us to the gospel. I want you to listen closely to this. Amazingly, in verses 32 and 33, the scribe, this Bible scholar, he agrees with Jesus. He says, basically, teacher, you're right. Out of everything else, these two commandments, they're greater than all the burnt offerings and all the sacrifices. You're right, Jesus. And then Jesus turns and affirms this scribe, and He says this phrase in verse 34, You are not far from the kingdom of God. He agrees with Jesus, and Jesus says that statement. You are not far from the kingdom of God. So I want you to just let that sink into your mind. Why did Jesus say that, and what does that mean? You are not far from the kingdom of God. Why did Jesus say it, and what does it mean? I want us to remember, the Kingdom of God in the Gospels is the redemptive reign of Christ. The redemptive reign of Christ. That's what the Kingdom of God is in the Gospels. That He's come as King. But the reason that it's a Gospel, the reason that it's a good news, is because sinners can come into this Kingdom. It's not just that Jesus is Lord, it's that Jesus is Savior and King. That we can come into this Kingdom. So, the Kingdom of God in the Gospels is the redemptive reign Christ and the question is this how is this man close to the redemptive reign of Christ? How is he close? He is beginning to see something that's critical for every person that would ever believe the gospel. And here's what he's beginning to see. He is beginning to see that the internal, the heart things, they far exceed the external rituals of religion. And what this man said is that to love God is greater than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. All that temple system, that ritual that was set up, it can't take away sin. It's just a shadow. And what he was beginning to see is that the major thing that God is after is the heart, is the heart. And the reason that that's important is this, if you only see religion as external rituals that you do, it is very easy for you to seem self-righteous. You go to church every week. You are baptized. You say your prayers. You do nice things. You give a tithe. And you do this, and you do this, and you do this. And they're all things that you do and check off a list. Just like going to the temple and throwing down an offering. Going to the temple and throwing down a sacrifice. And you can seem like you're doing pretty good on that, and you can think you're just fine, but when you begin to see the demands of the two greatest commandments on humanity, when you begin to see the things that they demand of you on the inside, you begin to see your sin for what it is. You begin to see yourself how you truly are. You are shot through with sin because you have not kept some obscure commandment in the Scriptures. You haven't kept the number one. You haven't kept the number two, and you haven't kept them thousands of times in your life. And this man was beginning to see that. This is what God demands. This is what God demands of us. So He's close to the Kingdom, and we must take these same steps. We have to see that. If you don't see that God demands internal things of you, you'll never see that you need forgiveness, and you'll never see that you need a new heart, you need a new nature. You're that bad. We're that guilty. We're that messed up by sin. So this man knows. Now he knows. He knows the greatest commandment in Scripture, and he knows the second like it, but this is not enough. Close to the kingdom does not mean that you're in the kingdom. He's close, but it is not enough. It's not enough. If you desire to enter the kingdom through keeping commandments, you have to do them perfectly. You have to keep them perfectly. So the question is this, feel free to raise your hand, but I'll warn you on the front end, don't embarrass yourself, okay? The question is this, where are those among us that have loved God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, and with all their strength? Every moment, every day of your entire life, He has been supreme in all your affections, in all your desires. Where are you? The second question is like it. Where are those among us that have loved our neighbors, our very own self, every moment of every day that we have ever drawn breath in this world? Where are you? Commandment keepers, where are you? And the birds chirp because the Word of God is very clear here. Ecclesiastes 7.20 says this, there is not a righteous man on earth that does good and never sins. There's not a righteous man on earth that does good and never sins. This certainly includes you. This includes me and it certainly includes you. And what this means We have such a tendency in our culture, once we find out everybody's on the boat, and that everybody sins. Y'all seen this happen, right? We downplay sin. Everybody does that. That's just like a little stumble. Yeah, nobody's perfect, bro. Everybody sins. But what we're seeing in this passage is, no, no, you have broken the two big ones. The two big ones you've broken, the greatest commandment in the entire universe, you've broken and the second like it, you've broken. Thousands of times you have broken these commandments. And so if we turn the question just a little bit and we were to begin to ask this, what is the greatest sin in all the Bible? You take a survey on that and maybe you would say kidnapping or rape or murder. According to Jesus, the greatest sin, it will put you ten times lower than a murderer in God's sight. The greatest sin in all humanity is to fail to love this God with everything that you have. This means that you are the greatest sinner. You're not just a kind of sinner. You're not just a so-so sinner. You are a great sinner. We all are. Because we've all broken the big one. We've all broken the second like it. We are wicked sinners in God's sight. Don't let this culture define sin. God's Word must define sin. It is wicked in the sight of God. And we are guilty. We are shot through with this sin. And we are guilty before this God. And for this reason, we are in great need of salvation. We need an atonement to wash away all these great sins that we have amassed before this God. We need an atonement to wash them away. We need to be forgiven of our sins. And unless you are forgiven of your sins, of your great sins to this God, unless that happens, you will stand before this God and you will receive eternal wrath from this Judge. Romans 2 verse 8 says this, for those who are self-seeking, for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury, there will be, for every single one. These sins must be washed away, they must be forgiven. Our failure to keep these commandments should drive us to the gospel. And I know I'm talking to a lot of Christians right now. We just run to the cross, and we just grab a hold of the mercy of God. And that's exactly what this should do, is these weighty commandments hit you. You're supposed to see your sin. You're supposed to feel guilty before God, and you're supposed to run for mercy. You're supposed to fling to the cross of Jesus. Because only Jesus has kept these two commandments perfectly. Only Him. Only Him. The Bible teaches that Jesus never sinned. And what that means is that He kept the first one perfectly His entire life. If He was not sinless, Jesus couldn't have even saved Himself, much less us. He's sinless. He lived a perfect life. From the moment He was born, to the moment His heart stopped beating, He loved God with everything that He had. This is Jesus. This is our Savior. Can you imagine even being around this man, and hearing Him praise God? Someone who literally loved God with everything that they have, and they worshiped this God. prayed to this God. He loved God all the way to His bloody cross. Every single step, He never faltered. And He loved His neighbor as Himself from the moment He was born. All through His life, He loved perfectly, all the way to His bloody cross. He loved God supremely, and He loved His neighbor as Himself, and He did it perfectly. This is the Savior. He's the only one to keep the commandments. He's the righteous one. In the cross of Jesus, it proves this. It proves that He loved God supremely. He submitted, even to the plan of God, even to the bloody cross, He submitted to this. And the cross also shows that He loved you as Himself. He hung on His bloody cross, not for His own sins. He did this for us. He's showing His great love for us on His cross. And so the good news of the gospel that we fling to, is the message of the cross. This is how we are forgiven of our sins. This is how we come into the kingdom, on this cross, this message of the cross. And we said this all the time, but I want to say it again. If you don't understand substitution, you will never understand the Gospel. And what I mean by that is as Jesus is hammered and nailed to a cross, and yes it was painful, and yes He was bleeding, and yes His flesh was ripped apart, but the Bible teaches most essentially what you need to understand is that God the Father takes all your sins, Isaiah 53, 6, and lays them upon the Lamb. and that He's standing, the Holy One, the Righteous One. Just try to picture a perfect white sheet, and then all the sins of all those who trust Him are just laid upon this Lamb. And you just picture just pouring just some nasty, nasty oil just filled all over this white sheet, and He was defiled, and He became the sin bearer. Our sins are really placed on this Christ. And then what the Bible teaches next, it's almost unthinkable, I cannot get over this, that God the Father, He began to treat God the Son as though He were personally guilty of my sins, of the sins of all who trust Him. And the Bible teaches that God began to lay down the wrath on the Son. And not only was He the sin bearer, He became the wrath bearer. He bore your punishment all the way to the end. And He died on the cross for our sins. all the times that we have failed to love this God, all the times that we have failed to love our neighbor as ourself, all this filth would cast on Him. And He bore the wrath of God for us. And He bore the wrath of God for us. Who can get over this? Who can get over this? And then the Bible teaches that three days later, this is not a myth, this is not a fairy tale, this is not a BBS story. The Bible teaches that King Jesus came out of the tomb. He was dead, dead, dead. And then three days later, He raised Himself to life. His resurrection proves that this is not a game. His resurrection proves to all humanity that He's the true Lord. He really did what He said He would do. He really came to do what He said He would do. And then the Bible teaches that He ascends to heaven and that this Jesus that died on the cross sits down on the throne and rules over all things and from this place, from this place, this is the good news of the gospel, that He looks to us and He promises every single sinner, every single filthy one that will look to Him, that will repent of their sins and that they will put their trust in Him, He promises that every single one of us will be forgiven of all of our sins. those times that we have broken these great commandments. Every single one of them. John 3.16, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. This is the gospel. The message of the cross. This is how we get our great sins washed away. This is how the two great commandments send you to Christ. And the scribe, he's close to the kingdom. He's standing right there, and he's got a few things that he understands. And maybe some of you are like this, that you're right there, and you understand a few things about the gospel, and you're close to the kingdom, but you're not in it. There's something else that you must do. You must repent of your sins, and you must trust Christ. You've got to come in. Being close to the Kingdom of God, it doesn't help you at all in eternity. It means you're still outside. And so, as you begin to understand these things of the Gospel, don't stop short. Don't stop short. Repent of your sins, and trust in this Christ. This is the only way to enter into the Kingdom of God. And so our final point is this, point number five, the gospel produces obedience to the two greatest commandments. These two commandments, they drive us to the gospel. We feel the weight of our guilt and our failure and we run to the cross, and we run to the cross and we receive the forgiveness and the justification and the righteous status that God gives us, but then, This is really neglected in our culture. But then, the Gospel sends us back to these two great commandments. Jesus came to do more than to forgive you of your sins. Jesus came to restore you to a right relationship with God and a right relationship with other people. That's called regeneration. He made you a new creation. You're a new species in Jesus. You're not just the old man anymore. You have the Holy Spirit of God. And what the Bible teaches is that we need nothing short of a new birth, a new heart to keep these commandments. And this is exactly what our God has done for us. Listen to Deuteronomy 30 verse 6. It says, And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of all your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. God has given us new hearts so that we could keep these two great commands. Listen to 1 John 4.19. We love because He first loved us. This is what happens in the Christian life. Our obedience as Christians to these commandments is not perfect. We're not teaching that, but it's real. It's tangible. We have a spiritual pulse. We love God and we love our neighbor as ourself. In fact, this is a necessary mark of true conversion. This must happen in your life, or you don't belong to Christ. Listen to John 8.42, Jesus said, if God were your Father, you would love Me. You know what the deepest problem is of people that have no love for Christ? It's that God is not their Father. And what that verse teaches is if you were really a Christian, if you were truly converted, if God were your Father, if you had the Holy Spirit, then you would love Jesus. But if you have no love for Christ, it's evidence that you don't belong to God. In fact, 1 Corinthians 16.22, it tells us that if anyone has no love for the Lord, he's still under the curse of God. So that verse teaches he's still under the curse. He's cursed by God if he has no love for God. True Christians love God. the plain teaching of Scripture. And so what I want to do is I want to encourage you today to love Him more than you do. To love God more and more. To grow in your love for God. And so here's what's before us at this point. We're about to break and we're about to go into life. And what's happened in the last little while is this. The greatest person the Lord Jesus Christ. He just summarized the greatest book, the Bible, and clarified the greatest commandments to you. These two commands come to you with the greatest authority. And so the question is this, what will you do? I'm speaking to Christians now. Those who have received a new birth, what will you do with what Jesus has commanded you? Luke 6, verse 46, Jesus says, Why would you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I command you? Why would you do that? So as you walk out of this place, what's your strategy? Is your strategy to fail at these commands for your entire life? and just cling to grace as a license to sin. Or as your strategy to pursue this God, to believe everything that this God says that you have in Jesus, and to love this God with everything that you have. These two commands need to be a banner over our life. We love God and we love our neighbor as ourself. Here's the warning. Matthew 24 prophesies to us that the love of many will grow cold. Revelation chapter 2 verse 4 tells us that a group of a supposed church, in Revelation chapter 2 verse 4, they abandoned the love that they had at first. So how does that happen? What starts with you ignoring things like this? That you ignoring these clear words from God. What are you going to do with the greatest person unpacking the greatest commandments in your life? What are you going to do with this? You need to fight against this lukewarmness and this abandoning this first love. You need to fight against it with everything that you have. Now why? Because the greatest commandment in the universe is at stake in your life. You need to kick against coldness. You need to beat against it with every ounce of faith, every ounce of fervency. You need to beat against coldness toward Christ and discouragement in your life. You must love God. You must love God. And as I close, I want to remind every Christian, all the brothers and sisters here, I want to remind you of how you're supposed to think about these commands. Here's how you're supposed to think about them. Romans 6 verse 11 says this, so you must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. And what this means, how am I supposed to think about the greatest command and the second like it as a Christian? I'm dead to coldness to God in Christ. I'm dead to these affections not lining up to the Word of God in Christ. And I'm alive to a vibrant, supreme, all-consuming passion to Jesus. Why? Because we're really good people? No, because we have the Holy Spirit. We have God within us. This is part of the inheritance that we have received. And so we must believe this gospel, not just to cancel sin away. We must believe everything that God tells us that we have in Jesus. You are dead to sin and you are alive to God in Christ Jesus. There is a resurrection power available to you to keep the greatest commandment in the universe. Will you believe that the gospel provides this power to you? I want that to be burning in our brains as we leave this place. Alright, I want to do something a little bit different. And we're going to stand up and I'm going to read a short verse. I'm going to read it three times. And I want us to read it together. This is a blessing. This is asking God to do something to us. This is us grabbing a hold of what God says about us in Jesus. So we're going to say this. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 24. Get your Bible out. Since this is the Word of God, I want you to ignore me saying this, and I want you to picture God Himself declaring His own Word over your life. And think about it for us personally, and think about it for us as a church. We're going to read it three times. Ephesians 6, 24. I want you to read it with me. Grace be with you all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. Grace be with you all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. Grace be with you all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your words. God, we thank you for your mercy toward us. Lord, and we do, God, we pray with fervency, Lord, and just desperation now, God, that you would, Lord, that you would increase our love for you, God. God, we pray that we would have just what we sung about, more love to You, O Christ. None of us has loved You enough, Lord, and we can't love You too much, and so we pray, God, that in the midst of a sinful world, in the midst of a sinful nature even, Lord, that You would cause this love to abound in us, Lord, and that You would be greatly glorified in Your church. This is our prayer, in the name of Jesus. Amen.